speculative fiction writer / psychiatrist / improviser

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My Post-Ninja Life

It has been some time since I updated anything, so I figured that it was time to say something, if only to prove I’m still breathing…ish.

And so, a story.

Upon reaching middle age, I took it upon myself to try to get in shape, recognizing that if it hadn’t happened by now, when exactly would it? I have never been a runner, still don’t like running, but with some support and commitment made it through a 5K last December.

So impressed with myself was I that I decided to become a triathlete. I bought a bike, and started swimming again (including briefly in Lake Ontario). I did an indoor triathlon in the winter, and then two sprint-distances (750m/30+km/5+km) this summer. Was I good? Nope, still a terrible runner! But I survived. And in surviving, I had the refreshing realization that competition, something generally absent in day-to-day adult life, is fun.

As a newly-minted competitive athlete, none were more impressed my prowess than my daughters who, for Father’s Day, took me to a local climbing gym that advertised a Ninja Warrior-style course. The hallmark being, to any Ninja Warrior fan out there, the dreaded Warped Wall.

I did the ten-foot version with ease. Then, one step into the twelve-footer, I completely ruptured my right Achilles’ tendon. Based on the response I get daily, this is the middle-aged man’s equivalent of giving birth. Everyone grimaces, then asks me just how painful it was. My answer is that shock goes a long way for dealing with pain, as I proceeded to drive myself with an impotent foot the twenty minutes to the nearest hospital. Not good judgment, don’t recommend.

The Canadian approach is generally non-operative and based on the notion that if you don’t move your foot for a few months, the tendon will reattach. I am currently on week ten and can only hope that my body is complying. Time will tell.

Along the way, the experience has sucked in ways I couldn’t have imagined beforehand. Crutches wreak havoc on one’s back, but so do fancy scooters, and one-legged showers. In cast or boot, I haven’t slept decently in months, and developed an aspirin sensitivity making my skin peel off.

And to kick me while down on the floor (I’ve developed an aversion to stairs), my laptop decided to implode and I lost a good six months of writing and revision.

I am prone to belief in silver-linings, the value of trials, or karma, but this has been a lesson nonetheless. When taken as a year, I have had the most difficult physical challenges of my life–some voluntarily and some involuntarily. And if something that has come from this, I hope it’s this:

Life is not relaxing. Life has no status quo. It is not a plateau that is reached and maintained. Life is growing or it is dying, but it is not respite in between.

There are days I long for routine again, but there’s danger there. Routine is the assumption that each day progresses like the day before. That is both incredibly fortunate and quite boring.

Once I’m done healing, I hope to be back to growing, improving, creating. And driving. Oh, how I miss driving.